Wednesday, April 10, 2013

US vaccine court pays $6 million to Gardasil victims, most claims not yet settled

“This new information from the government shows that the serious safety concerns about the use of Gardasil have been well-founded,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Public health officials should stop pushing Gardasil on children.”

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it has received documents from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealing that its National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has awarded $5,877,710 dollars to 49 victims in claims made against the highly controversial HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccines. To date 200 claims have been filed with VICP, with barely half adjudicated.

The documents came in response to a February 28, 2013, Judicial Watch lawsuit against HHS to force the department to comply with a November 1, 2012, Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:13-cv-00197)). On March 12, 2013, The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of HHS, provided Judicial Watch with documents revealing the following information:

Only 49 of the 200 claims filed have been compensated for injury or death caused from the (HPV) vaccine. Of the 49 compensated claims 47 were for injury caused from (HPV) vaccine the additional 2 claims were for death caused due to the vaccine.
92 (nearly half) of the total 200 claims filed are still pending. Of those pending claims 87 of the claims against (HPV) vaccine were filed for injury, the remaining 5 claims were filed for death.

59 claims have been dismissed outright by VICP. The alleged victims were not compensated for their claims against the HPV vaccine. Of the claims dismissed, 57 were for injuries, 2 were for deaths allegedly caused by the HPV vaccine.
The amount awarded to the 49 claims compensated totaled 5,877,710.87 dollars. This amounts to approximately $120,000 per claim.

VICP is a Health and Human Services program that compensates patients who have been adversely affected by certain vaccines. The HHS web site describes the program as a “no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system,” and it covers 16 specific classes of vaccines, including HPV vaccines which were added in 2007.

From its inception, the use of HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases has been hotly disputed. According to the Annals of Medicine: “At present there are no significant data showing that either Gardasil or Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline) can prevent any type of cervical cancer since the testing period employed was too short to evaluate long-term benefits of HPV vaccination.”

“This new information from the government shows that the serious safety concerns about the use of Gardasil have been well-founded,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Public health officials should stop pushing Gardasil on children.”

In addition to obtaining records from the FDA through the agency’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) which has documented thousands of adverse reactions to Gardasil, Judicial Watch also published a special report in 2008 detailing Gardasil’s approval process, side effects, safety concerns and marketing practices.